TS Step 4 is worth 70 points (7% of total course grade). See the rubric below for grading details. Be sure your scope is sufficiently narrow. Remember to edit your writing to be clear and to follow standard scholarly convention.
Objective: To reach conditional topic approval from your HIST 309 professor.
In a Word Document (no PDFs), take what you have learned from Steps 1-3 and propose your topic. Essentially, you are polishing your Step 3 Initial Post. The purpose is to demonstrate:
sufficient primary source access.
sufficiently narrow topic scope.
In this request for Conditional Topic Approval, provide two things:
1: A Proposal of Your Topic. Using the feedback you received on Steps 1 & 3, carefully describe the parameters of your paper and the data you will or might use. These parameters should include such considerations as:
Who – Which specific person or people are your historical actors?
What – What is the event or phenomenon to be examined?
Where – What are the geographical limits? Where did your topic occur?
When – What years or decades limit your scope?
What’s New – What is original about what you will contribute to the conversation historians have had about your topic? Are you using new evidence that no one has used before? Asking a new question about that evidence that no one has asked before? Are you applying a method or approach that no one has used on your topic? Is your topic unknown in scholarly circles? A lot of local history falls into this category.
Take a look at what scholars have already said about your topic. If you can find your topic on Wikipedia, in a general search on the internet, or on JSTOR, then you will need to refine or change your topic to add something new to the conversation. You will need to ask a new question that no one has asked, make a new argument, use a new method, etc. It doesn’t matter how many historians have looked at a topic: If you can ask a new question, then you can do that topic. You will have different experiences and different perspectives from scholars who are a generation or two older than you are.
Historical Method and Approach – Include some thinking about the method and/or approach you will use. Defining the historical approaches you think you will use will help you to focus and to understand your topic better. Think back to what you learned in HIST 289: Historical Methods. If you need a refresher, see Content: Historical Methods (Approaches) Primers. You may use one or more historical approaches in the same project, but not all of them.
Note: The Empiricist approach must be used with an additional approach because empiricism is a base from which all approaches begin.
Other factors that may be relevant, such as the range or kinds of people, organizations, ideologies, and any other categories that would help the reader understand the boundaries of the project.
In general, indicate how you will treat your topic and what aspect of that topic you want to highlight.
2. At Least 7 Accessible Primary Sources. Using the feedback you received on Steps 1 & 3, provide an updated numbered list, briefly describing each primary source. For each primary source, demonstrate that you have access by:
providing a link to any free digitized primary sources
or
providing a link to any primary sources that require a subscription and stating that you are comfortable paying for the sources
or
naming the institution that holds the source and stating that you are able to go to the site for in-person research
or
naming the institution that holds the source and stating that the source can be sent by mail or email to you, and that you are comfortable with paying any costs.
If sources are not in English, please let your professor and classmates know that you have the relevant language skills. For written sources, only reading skills are needed, not full fluency.
From Step 1, here are a few examples using a WWI museum that has digitized some but not all of its collection:
WWI Red Cross Poster
?component=AAAS&record=05f9afc6-ee0f-4e53-8e60-fca3603124a9
War Diary and Letters of John. F. Richards II 1917 to 1918
The National WWI Museum & Memorial in Kansas City, MO. I will visit this museum in person in April 2024.
Reminders:
Not all primary sources are equally valuable. For example, a brief letter describing the weather is not as valuable as a longer letter or a series of letters describing the ways people were adapting to the weather.
Topics must be framed entirely before the year 2000 (no journalism or current events topics), and they should put forth a historical argument, not a political editorial or conspiracy theory.
You may revise this until you have reached Conditional Topic Approval from your professor.
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